The Promise of a Bath
by crackinthecup
Summary: Mairon was hoping to take a bath. Melkor has other plans. Angbang.


Wisps of steam followed Melkor out of the bathing chamber he shared with his lieutenant: a cavernous room, slick with firelight and the lap of the geothermal pool sunk into the floor. Cooler air licked at his skin in the adjoining room, and though with each step the warmth of the stones beneath his feet radiated that lingering hum of languor back into his body, he still shrugged further into his bathrobe.

A lacquered mahogany cabinet was tucked into a corner, and Melkor idled with the carafe of wine perched atop it, swilling half the contents of his goblet before crinkling his nose at the taste: too supple a texture, too delicate a flavor, a variety Mairon had been keen to restock. He downed the remainder of the wine nonetheless.

Up the short flight of steps leading to the bedroom proper, sweeping the drapes aside with an impatient hand—he could not remember untying them into a loose flutter to conceal the entryway—and there beneath the covers, curled onto his side and facing away from him, lay his lieutenant. The corners of Melkor's lips tugged upward into a minute smile, a softening of the eyes that might not have been there at all, a simple trick of the gusting firelight, and—

"Are you quite done with your bath?" The bedcovers rustled with a slight shift in Mairon's position, but he did not roll over.

"Waiting your turn?" Melkor countered as he strode over to the wardrobe.

A mumble emanated from somewhere among the pillows. The wooden doors gaped open with a slight creak, and there, neatly folded upon the second-highest shelf, rested what Mairon surely had worn that day beside Melkor's own garments; garments he distinctly recalled as having last spilled in eddies on the floor.

"You would do well to defer until a later time," the Vala drawled, smearing the words into a suggestive purr. Burgeoning indignation pulsed across their mental connection. Melkor graced the wardrobe with his leer.

Within a recess spanning the left side of the armoire cluttered several of Melkor's preferred implements: a riding crop dangled from a tiny claw, tonguing the wood of the shelf below; gags were mounted upon similar hooks, some glistering in the corner, balls of steel and hollow metal rings and leather straps; leather too gleamed with a dull sheen as Melkor hefted a nine-fingered whip and gave it a light flick against the lip of the shelf. Mairon's intake of breath at the slap of leather against wood stirred desire into a simmer between his hipbones.

Melkor doffed his bathrobe and with a careless snap of the wrist deposited it in a precarious swing off the edge of the bed. A coil of rope snaked round the bedpost from last night's venture, and with practiced ease he then unknotted it, let it slither across the bedspread among the tongues of the flogger; and balancing as he was on the side of the bed, he reached for Mairon. The fingers of his left hand skated across Mairon's shoulder, sweeping back the flame of his hair to touch bare skin. The covers he peeled off too, and at the sight of the Maia's back he quashed a sharp inhalation: welts glared crimson, shot through with bruises where the whip had bitten into the tender flesh of his side. A hiss of pain skidded from between Mairon's teeth as he shifted onto his back, as his gaze jumped past his master and to the rope at his side, the flogger curled there so innocently, so insidiously.

He scrambled backward as if an arrow had been loosed past his ear. "My lord, no, I—"

"Hush," Melkor soothed, and with a sweep of his hand the flogger thudded to the floor, the rope whispering dismissal in its wake. Mairon dropped his protest, and with the crags of a frown scoured into his forehead, he stilled underneath the Vala's fingers as they ghosted a gentle echo of their violence across the abused skin of his throat, battered into shades of wilting yellow and purple.

A wince quirked across the Maia's features, and in a softened voice Melkor posed his question: "Does it hurt?" The touch upon his throat retracted only for the Vala to cradle Mairon's hands within his palms, thumbs probing at the abrasions chafed across his wrists.

"It will heal."

A noncommittal hum lingered in the space vacated by the Vala's fingers as he busied himself with the nightstand. "On your stomach," he instructed, emerging with a squat jar half-filled with reddish, viscous fluid.

Mairon stitched a little moue onto his lips to shutter the first glimmers of a smile. "My lord, I am _fine_ , I assure you."

"Come now, Mairon, surely the welts leave you in discomfort."

The Maia teased the jar out of his grasp and firmly plunked it down on the bedside table. Pursed lips, vexation plowed into the corners of Melkor's mouth, but his lieutenant's hands wedged warm to his chest, his tongue daubed honey upon the tail of each word: "Allow _me_ that judgment. Besides"—as he maneuvered his master to recline against the headboard, with himself in his lap—"you relish your marks upon me."

Melkor growled low in his throat, fingers burrowing across Mairon's waist, coaxing him closer. The kiss, when it smashed against Mairon's lips with the scrape of teeth and the intoxication of Melkor's tongue nudging against his own, was welcomed with mewling fervor. A roll of the hips and Mairon's rapidly stiffening length was tipping into his master's own. Lips parted, for a moment Melkor's nails were blades into his lieutenant's flesh—the heartbeat confusion of a tumble followed as Mairon was lowered to sprawl prone across the sheets, head cushioned upon his forearms.

A kiss wandered onto the nape of his neck, and under that teasing brush of lips he openly shivered. He could feel his master's smirk spilling across his skin, could feel him sliding lower, all tenderness and prickling nips peppered down his back. Melkor deliberately avoided the hurting flesh there, but even so his hair tangled and slipped and touched, and that silken pressure set the Maia tensing, twitching away with half-swallowed gasps upon his lips.

"Will you reconsider?" his master asked from somewhere behind him. "The salve would soothe the pain."

"No," he tried to mutter, to answer from where he pressed his unlordly little sounds into the pillow; but Melkor chose that moment to rub his thumb in firm circles over the very base of his spine, and into that glorious sensation he canted his hips, he purred his way through his refusal.

Satisfaction thrummed in the Vala's throat as with one hand he snatched a pillow and with the other he prodded at Mairon's thigh. "Spread your legs."

Mairon felt heat sear beneath his skin, felt the flash of a blinding star of arousal low in his belly as he complied. And at Melkor's appreciative grunt, the incipient flush mottled over his cheeks flared into a deep stain.

"That's it," his master crooned, easing the pillow beneath his hips. "That's a good boy."

Something deep within him seemed to twist at the appellation, and a groan brimmed upon Mairon's lips; a groan that rang in lewd chorus around the chamber even as he buried his head further into the pillows. Behind him his master chuckled, yet a moment later the vestiges of his mirth squalled shrilly in Mairon's ears as his palm stuck to his buttock in a smarting _smack_ that had him jerking forward.

"Are there any objections you would like to raise, little one?" Melkor's nails scratched against his scalp—he grabbed him by the roots and yanked. _Smack_.

"N-none, my lord," yet his voice splintered upon a scream as another _smack_ deepened the imprint of his master's palm into blooming crimson. The fingers in his hair tightened, forcing his back into an arch.

"Are you sure?" _Smack_. Mairon choked around a dry sob as the throb beneath his skin ratcheted up into percussion.

" _Ah_ – yes, m'lord."

" _There_. That was not so difficult after all." His forehead collided with the pillow as Melkor released his hold. Fingers were rough in rubbing the redness from his skin, in pulling flesh apart and leaving him all open. But he found he did not much mind, not when the sting drained with each pass of the Vala's hand; not when Melkor stooped, when his breath puffed hot over his entrance and the slickness of his tongue followed to lap at such sensitive skin.

The Vala guided his left hand between his lieutenant's legs; trailed a light touch up his cock, a touch that wrenched a whine from his lips, before taking him in hand and _stroking_. Mairon bucked, snapping his hips back to meet Melkor's teasing, and his fingers scrabbled for purchase among the rich silks of his master's bed.

"Oh _fuck_ ," he praised, he panted, and into the feel of Melkor's tongue licking him open he simply melted.

Melkor's response tickled at his entrance in the form of two fingers twisting with ease through the saliva dribbled there. Into him his master thrust his fingers, deeper as his muscles adjusted, and with one expert jab he had him keening his ecstasy, pushing back against him in wanton request. Melkor obliged, each press of his fingers scraped against that tiny warren of nerves until the hand curled around the Maia's cock dripped with the evidence of his need.

Seconds toppled and were swallowed in the quake of rapture as Melkor continued, and Mairon could do no more than wheeze ragged breaths through parted lips, features sculpted into a grimace.

"Are you close?" A husky whisper, and if Mairon had not been close, it would have propelled him there. Yet—Melkor knew full well what the tension in Mairon's muscles, the slight tremble, heralded.

A devious swipe of the thumb over his weeping head had Mairon chanting out his answer: "Yes—" And just when he could feel himself tipping, could feel his muscles locking and pleasure heating to a boil—Melkor retreated.

Mairon shot upward as though some dreadful spring of frustration had shattered. He shoved himself to his knees and, consequences or no, glared at his master, who had settled back among the pillows and was busily rubbing oil over his own length. " _My lord_ —" It was a low growl, the selfsame voice most often crashing into some insolent guest of his master's, yet its frayed edges were already unraveling into a wobble. An indulgent grin was the Vala's sole response as he grabbed him by the hips and hoisted him into his lap.

Before Mairon could curl his tongue around yet another stabbing syllable, Melkor's tip had already breached him. The Maia gasped at the fullness as the rest of his shaft sank in to follow; at the way Melkor latched onto his hips like he possessed every right to it, dragging him forward until his cock jarred against that one spot.

"I ask you again, Mairon: any objections?" _Mairon_. Melkor was savoring it, letting the taste linger, touching his tongue to each syllable and flicking it into a roll and a rumble past his lips. The Maia mewled with the carnality of it, and his master considered it sufficient in answer.

Melkor's hands splayed over his hips, spurring him into the lascivious undulations he so loved to watch; and watch he did, with hooded eyes he fixed each rock of his lieutenant's hips. Mairon leaned down, he planted his hands on either side of his master's head and let a smile gash across his face. By the hair the Vala grabbed him; he jerked him into a messy kiss that was doomed to an abrupt end when a mischievously timed oscillation of Melkor's hips had him tossing his head in his grasp, crying out in a sudden wash of delight.

Melkor still held him by the hair; swiveling his head to the side, he hoisted himself upon one elbow and trailed a homage of biting kisses down the taut arc of his throat. Yet each time his tongue darted out to soothe, each time he tempered the bite so that the skin was never truly pierced; and the collar of bruises tight around the base of his neck he entirely bypassed.

With his heavy breaths pattering in Melkor's ear, Mairon plunged a hand downward to play over his own aching length, and for once his master allowed it; welcomed it even, welcomed the clench of muscles it propagated, his Maia tensing so deliciously around him, welcomed it with a groan and a too-brutal thrust up into the spitting flames that were Mairon.

The Maia ripped himself from Melkor's fingers in a delectable arch of the back, and the Vala swiftly loosened his hold lest he were left with a clump of that saffron hair matted in his hand. Mouth open, eyes closed—a rictus of ecstasy across Mairon's visage; Melkor reached up to smooth the curls from his face, never once faltering in his rhythm, tilting his hips to meet his lieutenant's desperate bucking—harder as the Maia pressed his cheek into his palm—ever faster with the whimpering abandon stirred upon Mairon's lips—

"Yes," Melkor breathed his words of tinder, "come for me, Mairon."

It was the name. Through the pump of his own fingers the Maia spurted his seed onto his master's stomach, hips seized in an obscene, transported stutter. In one learned move Melkor flipped him over, he let him card tentative fingers through his hair and rake pink furrows down his back as he slammed into him to his own climax; he swooned past his peak with his face nestled in the crook of Mairon's neck, with the Maia's legs fitted snugly around his waist.

The silence was always empty, afterward; filled with naught but the ghost of breath fanning across rapidly cooling skin, the languid disentangling of limbs. Mairon thought he could discern the _thump-thump-thump_ of Melkor's heart through the mad flutter of his own.

Melkor kissed him, afterward. Long and slow, and if bliss had not been so soporific in his veins, he would have writhed beneath such ardent touch. But as it was he merely lay there, reminding himself that he really did need to move his lips, and not being quite able to reinforce that same conviction with regard to his limbs when the Vala rolled off to partially disappear beneath the covers.

"We ought to clean ourselves up," he informed in what he hoped was his master's general direction, threading together a vague recollection of the promise of a bath.

"You ought to take heed lest you catch sickness in this chill." An idle warning, as they both knew.

"Shall I stoke the fire?"

"Just come here."

Mairon blindly curled into the blanketed lump that was his master and found himself cajoled into the warmth beneath the covers until his face nuzzled against a muscled chest.

"We truly ought to clean ourselves up."

Melkor provided a grunt that indicated he was already more than half asleep, and for the umpteenth time Mairon let this particular matter slide.


End file.
